The Good, The Bad, The Spin

By Bob Conrad, PhD, APR

An examination of the shifting landscape between public relations, journalism and new media. The Good, The Bad, The Spin looks in detail at the current state of the news media, the public relations profession, crisis communications practices, science and emerging social media technologies. The second edition is now available in print, e-book and Amazon Kindle formats.

Bob is the author and co-author of numerous research publications, magazine articles and posts about public relations, science, marketing and social media. His blog received an “Editor’s Pick” from the U.K. Journalism.co.uk, “The essential site for journalists,” and his work has been featured in Information Week, Bulldog Reporter,PRSA’sTACTICS and other sites and publications. He is the author of the following books.

“Includes important tips and lessons learned from a variety of fascinating examples. Read it to learn or read it for pure entertainment.”–Judy Strauss, Ph.D., Marketing Professor, University of Nevada, Reno, co-author, Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputation Online.

“Conrad obviously wasn’t worried about the page count, and didn’t load this book down with unnecessary verbiage. If you’re in public relations, or perform similar communications functions for your business or organization, this is a great resource. Bob looks at PR through the lenses of journalism, technology, social media and crisis communications. This isn’t a “playbook” that tells you how to do everything better. Rather, it’s a series of cautionary tales and case studies that highlight the easily avoidable pitfalls in what has become a quickly evolving profession. Bottom line: a quick, nonsense-free snapshot of the challenges facing a misunderstood discipline.” –Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR

From the Introduction

To be human, as science has shown, is to be easily swayed by our perceptions of our surroundings. Social psychologist Robert Cialdini, in his seminal book called Influence: Science and Practice, says the future must be vigilant about information overload. Specifically, “because technology can evolve much faster than we can, our natural capacity to process information is likely to be increasingly inadequate to handle the abundance of change, choice and the challenge that is characteristic of modern life.

“More and more frequently, we will find ourselves in the position of lower animals – with a mental apparatus that is unequipped to deal thoroughly with the intricacy and richness of the outside world,” he continues.

Being aware of this reality, especially in a time when we must, now more than ever, guard against information overload, is therefore critical. But we must first be cognizant that information overload is occurring in the first place. It is because of this that I regularly reflect on what is passing through our filters and what sense is being made of it.